Chinese protest chef's death from "overwork"

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese workers protested outside a garment factory in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangdong on Monday after the death of a colleague they said was from overwork, local media reported.

The worker, a chef in a Dongguan factory in his 40s, had worked more than 10 straight days before his death on Friday, the Guangzhou Daily said on its website amid rising factory closures sparked by the global economic crisis and government concern about escalating unrest.

"The chef's family and the workers were not satisfied with the compensation given by the factory," the report said, adding that there were hundreds of protesters. "They threatened to protest further this afternoon."

The report did not say how the chef died.

A police officer in Humen town in Dongguan confirmed the protest, but said it was not as big as the newspaper said.

"Lots of the people are just onlookers," the officer, who gave his surname Wang, told Reuters by telephone. "In an economic crisis, such cases happens frequently."